


The Song That Yearns to Be on My Tongue

by Daisy_Rivers



Series: Song on My Tongue [1]
Category: Hamilton - Miranda (Broadway Cast) RPF
Genre: Communication Issues, Drama, F/M, Past Relationship(s), Semi-Public Sex, Theatre, we're in the play
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-15
Updated: 2019-02-15
Packaged: 2019-10-28 22:11:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,547
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17795684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daisy_Rivers/pseuds/Daisy_Rivers
Summary: You're happy to be cast in a play by Rafael Casal. Everybody says he's a genius, but he's not helping you to understand your role. It may be that you keep getting distracted by his eyes and his collarbones.





	The Song That Yearns to Be on My Tongue

**Author's Note:**

> The title and every line from the non-existent play, "Currents," is taken from Rafael's "The First Week of a Breakup." That poem and a particular photo of Rafael in a tank top inspired this story.

His face is planes and angles, sharp edges. The lines of his jaw and cheekbones fend you off like broken glass at the top of a wall.

“He’s a good guy, y’know, really good guy,” Anthony tells you eagerly, but then his face changes. “He's just a little ... guarded.”

“Moody,” Renee says, frowning. She pauses. “No, not moody. Intense. I never really got to know him.” They hadn’t worked together long. “You should ask Pippa.”

Pippa sighs. “Yeah, he’s complicated. Brilliant, of course, but ...” She flaps her hand as if she’s expecting to catch a word in the air. She doesn’t find one.

Rafael Casal, playwright, poet, actor, producer, singer, rapper, and man of sharp edges. Complicated. Intense. Guarded. Brilliant.

“When do you start rehearsals?” Pippa asks brightly.

“Monday,” you tell her.

“Mm,” she remarks.

Rehearsals. Rehearsals for the dream that you’ve been chasing ever since you finished college. You’re going to be performing opposite the multi-hyphenate genius in a play he has written.

It’s called _Currents_ and it’s about the end of a relationship. You and Rafael will play the roles of Jess and Nick, who loved each other for a long time, but don’t anymore. You’ve spent weeks trying to find your way into Jess because you don’t want her to come off as bitchy or whiny or some other cliché. She’s brittle enough to break, and every time Nick gets close enough to see her clearly, she lashes out at him. It’s obvious to you that she’s terrified, but you don’t yet know of what.

At the first table read, you ask Rafael directly, “What’s the backstory on Jess and Nick?”

He tilts his head, looks at you, eyes green as sea water. “What do you think?”

His tone is indefinite, and you’re not sure if he’s asking your opinion or if he’s being sarcastic, like it should be obvious.

You hope he wants your opinion, so you say, “She’s scared, so there must be a reason.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You think she’s scared?”

“Yes. Actually, I think she’s terrified.”

He nods, as if he’s thinking it over. “That would explain her anger.”

You wait, but there’s nothing more. For God’s sake, he wrote the damn play. He must know what happened between these two characters. Why isn’t he giving you any information?

The reading goes on, and you realize you’re saying Jess’s lines in a tight, tense voice. You take a breath, and the next sentence comes out more gently. _“Solutions are few.”_

Both Tommy and Rafael look up alertly, their eyes on you. You feel yourself flush and you shift uncomfortably in your chair. Tommy looks a little uneasy, but Rafael’s face is impassive. Nobody says anything, and the next line is his. _“This is how it’s got to be.”_

You call Pippa that night. “I don’t know if I can do this,” you tell her, near tears. “It’s like trying to rehearse dialog with a block of ice.”

“They’re not giving you any notes at all?”

“Nothing. I speak, he speaks, occasionally someone else speaks, but that’s it.”

“I’m not surprised at Rafa, really, but that’s not like Tommy. He’s usually really good with feedback, and he’s never negative.”

“Tommy hasn’t said anything more helpful than, ‘Next page,’” you say bitterly, “although to be fair, I get the feeling he doesn’t like what’s going on.”

There’s silence at Pippa’s end for a minute, then, “Sometimes Rafa plays these … um … mind games. Like as a way of getting a reaction.”

“Oh, that’s mature. What kind of reaction do you suppose he’s trying for?”

“It’s hard to know. Listen, Y/N, he’s not mean or anything. If he’s acting like an asshole, it’s got something to do with how he wants the play to go.”

You snort at that. “Really? Isn’t he supposed to be the one who’s so good with words? Why doesn’t he use some of them to communicate with me?”

“Do you want me to say something to him?” Pippa asks. “I might be seeing him a week from Saturday.”

“God, no, of course not. I’m just venting.” Still, you wonder in what context she might be seeing him. There had been rumors about Rafael and Pippa after they did _Measure for Measure_ last year. Maybe you should stop talking to her about him.

“Why don’t you come?” Pippa is saying, and you realize you haven’t been listening.

“Come to what?”

“It’s nothing special, just a few friends, but we haven’t all been together since Anthony and Jazzy got engaged, so I’ll break out the champagne for that.”

“And Rafael’s invited?”

“Well, yeah, sure. I mean, Daveed will be here, and where one goes …” her voice trails off.

Something occurs to you. “Are they dating? I mean sometimes I see Daveed with a girl, but I’m not really sure …”

“Oh, hell, no.” Pippa cuts you off, laughing. “Those boys are definitely not a couple.”

“Not gay?”

“Oh, honey, Rafa is _so not_ gay.” She stops suddenly as if she might have said too much. “Just come over around seven. Pizza and champagne.”

*          *          *          *          *

You’re done with table reads and well into onstage rehearsals. It’s a difficult play, agonizingly emotional. It’s clear that Jess and Nick once loved one another deeply, and now all they do is strike out at each other. Since Rafa won’t give you any backstory for Jess, you’ve built one yourself. In your story, Jess is angry because something terrible happened to her, and Nick didn’t support her through it. You’re not sure yet what Jess’s tragedy was, but you know that she felt abandoned and deeply hurt, so you’re finding a way to play her.

There’s a scene in the first act, where there still seems to be a possibility of reconciliation between Jess and Nick. You and Rafael face each other, and your stage direction is simple: _(she touches him)._ It could mean anything – you could tap him on his arm, place your hand on his chest, anything. You try a couple of things, again with no feedback. On the third day, as you look up at him, you realize his eyes are shadowed with exhaustion, and his hair has fallen down over his forehead. Without thinking, you reach up and gently brush his hair back, and you instantly know that’s the right move. His next stage direction is _(he kisses her),_ and it’s been very clinical and perfunctory, but now he actually kisses you as if he means it, lips, teeth and tongue, his hand tangled in your hair, and it almost takes your breath away. _This is not a stage kiss,_ your brain tells you as you melt into him, feeling something of Jess’s fear, but you allow her to let her guard down and kiss him back. It goes on for long minutes, but then suddenly he pulls away from you and swipes the back of his hand over his mouth as if he’s wiping you off him. His eyes never leave yours, and he says his line bitterly. _“Love can’t live here anymore.”_

You feel as if you’ve been punched in the gut, and you can’t separate yourself from Jess in the moment. He’s done it again, you think, her feelings in your mind. He’s made me think he loves me, and then let me down. You try to take a deep breath, but it becomes a wrenching sob, and you bend over, gasping and choking, as tears pour down your face.

“That’s perfect,” Tommy says, and you hate him for it. The first compliment he’s given you, and it’s because he sees you completely destroyed. He wants that performance every night? _Jesus._

In your heart, though, you know he’s right. You might need a year of therapy after this show closes, but Jess is coming alive for you now.

That night, you dream of Rafael’s kiss.

*          *          *          *          *

You’re not sure that going to Pippa’s is a good idea, but you want to congratulate Jasmine and Anthony, and there is at least the possibility that you might be able to have a conversation with Rafael. You’re not even sure what you want to ask him except maybe _Why won’t you help me find a way into the role? Why do I have to stumble into it?_

Pippa had said there would be just a few friends at her apartment, but her definition of “a few” is different from yours. Lin opens the door, champagne glass in hand, and gives you a kiss on the cheek. Lin and Pippa have been on-again-off-again for years, going on drama-filled breaks where they get involved with other people and then reconnecting in drama-filled reconciliations. Both of them have scattered broken hearts behind them when they abandoned temporary lovers to get back together. You’re not sure what the deal was with Pippa and Rafa, but around the time they were doing _Measure for Measure_ , Karen packed up everything she owned and moved to Chicago, swearing she never wanted to see Lin-Manuel Miranda again as long as she lived. A couple of weeks after that, Lin happened to drop into Sunflower for brunch, and there was Pippa eating an omelet with Anthony and Jasmine. He sat down at their table and, the way Jasmine described it, by the end of the meal, Pippa was in his lap, and they were putting on such a public display that the manager quietly asked them to leave.

“Seriously,” Jazzy had told you, “his hand was all the way up her skirt to his fucking elbow, and she was _moaning._ ” She rolled her eyes. “Loud.”

Lin is gorgeous, of course, and he’s come on to you more than a few times, but you’ve decided that’s a train wreck that you don’t want to get involved in. Still, to be honest, the idea of being with a guy who would finger fuck you during brunch at a popular restaurant has become one of your favorite fantasies. Lin and Pippa seem to be deep in their “on” phase at the moment, as he’s very much at home in her apartment, playing the host and touching Pippa every time he walks past her.

You’re seated in a comfortable chair on the other side of the room, enjoying the rather odd combination of pizza and champagne, talking casually to everyone. Lin has given an elaborate toast in both English and Spanish to the newly engaged couple, and the mood in the room is festive. Somebody puts on some music, and Leslie and Nicolette are the first ones to get up and dance, closely followed by Jazzy and Anthony. Pippa is on the couch with Lin behind her bending down to kiss her neck. They’ve both had quite a lot of champagne. They’ve been known to take each other’s clothes off at parties, but stories like that get out, and Chris and Renee have promised to keep an eye on things.

Renee sits down next to you for a few minutes. “Those two,” she says, shaking her head. “I do _not_ want to hear about this party on _Entertainment Tonight_.”

You laugh. “Maybe they’ll just run a couple of minutes about how we celebrated Jazzy and Anthony’s engagement.”

“Maybe,” she responds darkly, “but I don’t know everybody here, and I don’t want to see any video.”

You look around. “Oh, why not? Everybody’s having fun.”

She sighs and stands up, and you follow her gaze. Lin is leaning all the way over the back of the couch and sliding his hands down the front of Pippa’s blouse. “That’s why,” Renee tells you. “No big deal at the moment, but that’s how it starts.”

She crosses the room determinedly, and you watch her skillfully distract Lin with a question.

“Damn, and it was just getting interesting,” a voice says behind you, and you jump. It’s Rafael, and that’s the first casual sentence you’ve ever heard him utter. He sits down in the chair Renee just left. “Enjoying the party?” he asks.

You have no idea how to take him. You’ve been rehearsing with him for two weeks, playing raw on-stage scenes about a broken relationship, kissing passionately and being pushed away, and yet offstage, he’s treated you like a leper. Now he wants to chat?

“Sure,” you respond neutrally, your guard up.

His eyes are still on Pippa and Lin, who are now out on the dance floor. “I wonder how long it will last this time.”

“What?”

“Oh, the great Pippa-and-Lin romance. I think the record is about fourteen months.” Is there an edge in his voice? You wonder if maybe Pippa broke his heart when she and Lin reunited this last time.

“How long have they been … um, together?”

Rafael laughs. “Since college, but you know, off and on. Probably fifty per cent off, fifty on. Lin even got engaged during one of their breaks.”

“Karen?” you ask, wishing you weren’t curious.

“No, a few breaks before Karen. Her name was Vanessa. A real stunner.”

“What happened to her?”

“Moved to Boston, married a professor at MIT. At least that’s what I heard.” He takes a sip of champagne. “Anybody who dates either one of them is a fool if they think something might come of it. They’ll always end up together.”

You wonder if he’s talking about himself. You can’t resist the urge to get in a little sarcastic dig. “You’d think everybody would know by now.”

He smiles at you over the rim of his champagne glass, and you are suddenly struck by how attractive his smile is. “Oh, most of us know,” he says. “Doesn’t mean we can’t have a little fun.”

Was that what it had been? You wonder why it bothers you. “Can I ask you something?”

“What?”

“In the second act, when Nick …”

He hold up his hand and says, “No. No talking work here.”

You huff out a frustrated sigh, and he smiles again. You hate his beautiful smile. “Wanna dance?” he asks, still smiling.

You get up and dance with him. He’s a good dancer, of course, and if you weren’t seeing him every day at torturous rehearsals, you’d think he was fun. Daveed must have come in with him because he’s talking to Chris, and they’re laughing at something. Then Daveed sees you, catches your eye, and winks. What does that even mean? You turn away and stumble, bumping into Rafael and clutching at his shoulder to keep from falling. He’s wearing a casual button-down shirt, loose, with the top two buttons open, and you pull it sideways, baring his collarbone and the tattoo over his heart. You’re completely mortified and can’t stop apologizing. The only good thing is that now Pippa is straddling Lin in one of the dining room chairs, and everybody’s watching that show instead of you.

“Hey,” Rafael says, getting your attention.

Your face is still hot with embarrassment. “I’m sorry.”

“You already said that around twenty times.”

You just stare at your feet.

“Come on,” he says, putting his arm around your waist and pulling you through a set of French doors that open off the living room.

“Where are …” you start, and then, “Oh.” You’re on a small balcony with a black wrought-iron railing that looks like lace, and the city spreads out below you, filled with lights against the blue darkness. “It’s so beautiful,” you say. You are trying not to focus on his right arm that is still around you, or the glimpse you had of his collarbones, as sharp and dangerous as his perfect jawline.

“It’s gonna get crazy in there,” he says, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. He shakes one out, puts it between his lips, shoves the pack back into his pocket, takes out his lighter, lights the cigarette, all one-handed, practiced, without loosening his grip on you. He inhales gratefully, closing his eyes, and you push away everything that you’re feeling and just respond to his words.

“Why? What do you think is going to happen?”

He blows out the smoke. “Well, Pippa’s drunk, and she’s giving Lin one of her famous lap dances. Renee is probably going to try to stop it, and Lin’s gonna get extremely pissed, because Lin does not like to be interrupted mid … activity.”

You choke back a half-hysterical laugh. “It sounds like you’re pretty familiar with the pattern.”

He takes another drag on the cigarette, and looks at you sideways under his lashes. “Oh, yeah. Drunk Pippa is really, really enthusiastic.”

You have no idea what the correct response to that bit of over-sharing is. “Okay.”

He pulls you in closer so that you’re facing him instead of next to him, and holds his cigarette carefully down and away. That’s good because you wouldn’t want to be on fire literally as well as figuratively. “You knew, right?” he asks.

“Yeah, I mean, sort of. I just … you’re all still friends?”

He laughs as he exhales smoke. “Honey, if Lin and Pippa stopped being friends with everybody they ever fucked, they would have no friends in this town.” He stops and thinks for a minute. “Well, maybe Chris, but that’s all.”

“Renee?” you ask, a little shocked.

“It was a minute ago,” he tells you. “I think Lin was still in college.”

“Wow.”

He’s looking down at you, and in the dim light, his eyes are reflecting blue-green, like the ocean. “How’d you stay out of the Lin-and-Pippa club?”

“Lin’s always taken refusal with good grace.” Why is he holding you like this, tight against him, while you’re having this whole casual conversation?

His cigarette is finished, and he crushes it out in one of Pippa’s potted plants, leaves the butt there. He slides his left hand up your spine, caresses the back of your neck with his fingers, twists them into your hair, and then he begins to kiss you very slowly and very thoroughly. He turns you a little, presses you up against the wall, pushes his hips into yours, You feel how hard he is, and you completely understand why Lin and Pippa would undress each other at a party. Rafa’s mouth moves onto your jaw, soft, but with a hint of teeth. You put your hands on his ass, pull yourself as close as you can, and grind against him. He makes a noise deep in his throat, and you feel his teeth on your neck, just as the door opens and Daveed steps onto the balcony.

“Yo, Cash,” he’s saying, not even paying attention, and then he stops suddenly. “Oh, fuck.”

Rafa has taken a step back, and you’re trying to straighten your clothes and your hair, not looking at Daveed.

Daveed waves a hand vaguely, “Don’t let me … uh … hey, I’m … uh, I’m not even gonna stay out here. Too fucking cold.” He turns and goes back in.

There’s nothing to do but laugh. “Oh, God,” you wail, “I can’t believe …”

“I can,” Rafa says darkly. “Why does Diggs always have to check on me?”

You can’t stop giggling. “He’s your dad friend.”

“No,” Rafa declares definitively. “No, he is not.” He’s laughing too, though. He leans in close to you. “Listen, Y/N, Diggs was right about one thing; it’s too damn cold to stay out here. I hadn’t even noticed, but that’s your fault for being so amazingly hot.” He kisses you again, but briefly. “I should know better anyway,” he continues. “We have a play to do together, and a three-week run, so we’ll get back to this later.”

“In a month?” you ask, disappointed.

“Yeah.”

“Are you going to at least talk to me at rehearsal now?”

He’s not smiling. “Nothing is going to change.”

“Rafa, why are you …”

“Sh.” He brings his mouth back to yours. “Can you trust me?” he whispers.

“I don’t understand what you’re doing.”

“Can you trust me without understanding it?”

“I don’t know,” you answer honestly. “I’ll try.”

He nods silently, and you wish you could hate him.

*          *          *          *          *

He hadn’t lied to you. Absolutely nothing has changed at rehearsals, and as opening night approaches, you only grow more frustrated.

You call Jasmine. “I hate him,” you tell her.

“Yeah, you probably don’t,” she responds.

“How do you know?”

“Come on, Y/N, nobody hates Rafa.”

“I find that hard to believe,” you mutter.

“So where did you disappear to at the party?” she asks casually.

“Um…”

“Funny thing, Rafa went missing at the same time. I mean, he does go out to smoke a cigarette sometimes.”

“That must have been it.”

“And you went along to keep him company?”

“Who says I went with him?”

“Daveed.”

“Oh, shit.”

“No secrets around here, girl,” she reminds you and hangs up, laughing.

*          *          *          *          *

By opening night, your stomach is a mass of nerves. You can’t eat anything, but you keep drinking water, and when they call places, you see Rafael go to center stage. He’s on as the curtain opens, talking about what once had been between him and you – between Nick and Jess – it was hard to feel a difference now. _I find things that I couldn't when we were together,_ he says.

That’s your cue. You enter right and give your line, _You're on my mind more than you ever were._

The play continues. Nick and Jess play out the tragic destruction of their relationship. The backstory you’ve built for Jess is dense and complex, and you know what terrible thing happened to her. She was driving a car, and she killed someone. Technically, it wasn’t her fault, but she’d carried that guilt around with her, and Nick can never acknowledge it. You imagine their conversation, a conversation that exists only in your head. “It wasn’t your fault,” Nick would say, ignoring her need to grieve, trying instead to comfort her. But in that moment, she wouldn’t need comfort, she would need space for her sadness. He never gave it to her. “After the accident, she was never the same,” he would say to his friends. “He never understood,” she would say to her sister. Jess and Nick’s history has become more real to you than the play itself.

As the performance goes on, you realize that the audience is absolutely silent, riveted. You come to what you think of as the kiss scene, and it goes exactly as it should, your kiss real and passionate. Then Rafa pulls away and rejects you, and you fall to your knees, completely broken. There are sobs throughout the house.

At the end, you and Rafa enter for curtain calls from opposite sides of the stage. You don’t stand close to one another or hold hands in the usual way, but you each take a bow, and the audience is on its feet, screaming and applauding.

You go back to your dressing room, shaking, and sit down, removing your stage make-up in the usual way, gulping water, knowing you should be overjoyed, but feeling exhausted. You try to ignore the noise in the hall, but you can’t ignore the pounding on your dressing room door.

“Come in!” you call, not getting up, and Rafael throws the door open, banging it against the wall. He’s almost hidden behind a huge bouquet of roses. You stand up, half laughing, half annoyed, as he puts the roses down on the table.

He puts his hands on your shoulders. “You. Are. Amazing,” he says. He’s still high on adrenaline. Yours is gone, leaving you drained.

There are people behind him, coming in the door – Daveed, of course, Lin, Pippa, Jazzy and Anthony. They’ve all been in the audience, and you appreciate the support, really, but you don’t want to talk to anybody right now. Rafa turns around. “Diggs, yo, we’ll see you guys at the party, yeah?”

Daveed helpfully herds everyone out, and Rafael locks the door behind them. He puts his finger under your chin and tilts your face up gently. “Hey, Y/N,” he said, “what’s wrong?”

You shrug and pull back. “Nothing, really, I’m just tired. The play … it’s hard to keep up that level of intense emotion.”

“I know. I wrote it.”

“Yeah, well, you handle it better than I do. And anyway, you always knew what the story was about. I had to guess.”

He frowns. “What do you mean?”

“You gave me _nothing_ , Rafael. Not one clue about the character I was playing. I had to figure everything out for myself.”

“But look what you did,” he responds enthusiastically. “You created a brilliant character. You were phenomenal out there.”

“You think I couldn’t still have been phenomenal with a little help from the playwright? You think if you’d answered some of my questions, my performance would have been a failure?”

“No, of course not, but I wanted you to figure Jess out, to show me who she was.”

“So it was deliberate?”

“What?”

“You deliberately abandoned me just to see what I could do? To see if I met your goals?”

“No! It wasn’t that!”

“Then what was it?”

“If you were playing Jess, I wanted you to own the character.”

“I’m not the playwright, Rafa, I’m the actor. You wanted me to do half your job.”

“No, I wanted you to create Jess, so I could play Nick reacting to her. And it was perfect.”

You sit down on the shabby couch that’s up against the wall. “Okay, great. We’ll do it again tomorrow. I’m tired now, and I want to get some sleep.”

He sits down next to you, his face creased in concern. “Y/N, talk to me.”

You drop your face in your hands. “Oh, my God, do you see the irony there?”

He takes a deep breath. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“You put me through three weeks of hell,” you tell him. “I couldn’t sleep. I cried every day.”

He nods. “I know. Look, I didn’t exactly enjoy doing it.”

“That’s bullshit. You didn’t care how I felt.”

“No, I did, I swear.” He’s serious, maybe troubled. “Just … maybe it was worth it?” His eyes are on yours. “I’ve never seen anyone inhabit a character the way you did.”

“Yeah, because I created her. That’s not what I wanted to do. Everybody talks about what a great writer you are, and it’s true. The script is incredible. But I expected to know who I was.”

“I’m sorry,” he says slowly. “I didn’t …”

You take a gulp of water. “You know who we sound like?”

“Who?”

“Jess and Nick. Talking at each other, but neither of us understanding the other’s point of view.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “No, that can’t be us.”

You shrug. “It could easily be us. We should have been talking about this for weeks.”

“You’re really angry with me.”

“Yeah.”

He’s so close that you feel his breath when he speaks. “You have good reason to be angry.”

“No shit.”

Can that possibly be a twitch of amusement at the corner of his mouth? “I can deal with anger,” he says, more to himself than to you. He lifts his hand slowly so that you can see it, no surprises, and holds it near your cheek, not touching.

It takes you off guard. “What are you doing?”

“May I touch you?” he asks.

“What? Why?”

“Testing a theory.” He doesn’t move his hand.

“Oh, fuck your theories, Rafa,” you tell him wearily.

“Please?” he whispers.

For some reason, that brings tears to your eyes. “Please _what?_ ”

“Please may I touch you?”

The tears overflow, and you turn your face into his hand, and his thumb slides across your cheek, wiping the tears, and then his other arm is around you and you fall into him, sobbing.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmurs over and over, his hand sliding into your hair, holding you. Your arms go around his waist, and even though it makes no sense, you feel like you belong there. When he kisses your hair and then your forehead, you don’t object, and he kisses your eyelids, wet with tears and swollen, and the thought floats into your mind that you must look awful, but the next thought is that it doesn’t matter because he wouldn’t care about something like that. He kisses your cheek, and then finally, his mouth reaches yours.

There’s plenty of time now, and the door is locked, so he’s as meticulous about this as he is about everything else, taking the time to get it right. He starts with tiny kisses from one corner of your mouth to the other, gentle, no pressure, then just your top lip, then your bottom lip. It’s soft and slow, almost hypnotic, and when he does it all again, you open your mouth to him with a sigh. His tongue is warm and slippery, and he finds places that you never realized were so sensitive. He tilts your head back carefully with his hand, and his tongue flicks behind your top teeth to the roof of your mouth with soft fluttering movements, and you lie back on the couch.

He kneels over you, never taking his mouth off yours. His tongue is tasting the back of your bottom lip, and you don’t ever want this to stop. You slide your tongue into his mouth and he holds it there, sucking it, as a wave of heat washes over you. Your hips jerk up, and he gives a little grunt of satisfaction.

He takes his mouth off yours just long enough to ask softly, “We okay?”

“Mm-hm,” you reply, “but I’m still really mad.”

“’S’all right,” he says, his lips on your jaw now. “Anger’s valid.”

“I’m not …ah,” you gasp as he scrapes his teeth across your throat.

“Is that good?”

“Yeah, it’s …” he does it again, a tiny bit more pressure, and you whimper.

“It’s gonna be better if we get our clothes off,” he says, yanking off his shirt and throwing it on the floor.

He’s probably right about that, you think, as you run your fingers over his bare chest, tracing the sharp angles of his collarbones. No man has the right to be this beautiful. You manage to wriggle out of your own clothes, and you feel how warm he is, and you stop overthinking it all. The play was a roaring success, you and Rafa are naked on the couch, and your adrenaline levels are rising.

You look up into his beautiful eyes, thin gray-green rims around his dilated pupils. He smiles, showing his teeth, and then he ducks his head down and starts sucking on your nipple, and you want him so much that it’s almost painful. He switches to your other breast, and you reach down for him, begin stroking him, because really, everything’s great and all, but you are so ready to be fucked that you’re running out of patience with the foreplay. You get your hand between your legs, rub your clit a little, get your fingers wet, and then you go back to stroking him, your hand sliding easily now.

“Fuuuck,” he moans. He moves down, kisses your navel, swirls his tongue in it, goes lower, tastes you, and you feel like you could melt. He moves away for a minute, finds his jeans on the floor, fumbles in a pocket for a condom, then gets his tongue on your clit while he opens the wrapper and rolls it on, a feat of dexterity you didn’t know was possible. You’re seconds away from coming, and you pull back a little and spread your legs as wide as you can.

He kisses your clit gently, then gets up on his knees, the tip of his cock just at your entrance. “Like this?”

“Please.”

He slides in slowly, and you feel yourself clenching as if you can pull him in farther. He goes deeper, filling you all the way, and gets his thumb on your clit. “You like it this way?” he asks.

“Yes.” You have no idea how you can talk because you’re about to explode. He’s moving, getting a rhythm, thumbing your clit as he thrusts, and every nerve ending is reaching toward him.

He kisses you, not breaking the rhythm. “There’s nothing better,” he murmurs, “than a girl who likes a good old-fashioned fuck.”

And that’s all you need to send you flying.

*          *          *          *          *

You get to the party more than an hour late, and Jasmine gives you her best side-eye, laughing. Daveed is across the room making out with Emmy, but he takes a minute to give Rafa a thumbs-up. Leslie and Nicolette are at the buffet table, and Anthony’s talking to Chris about his new EP. Lin’s lying on a table top looking up Pippa’s skirt as she dances over him, topless. Renee is asking around for a shirt or jacket, but she’s not having any luck because Pippa looks damn good, and everybody’s enjoying the show.

Rafa watches Pippa appreciatively for a couple of minutes, then leans in close to your ear. “Looks like fun, yeah? You want to try it?”

“When?” you ask, your eyes on Lin’s face. You are absolutely positive that Pippa is not wearing underwear, and Lin is completely wrecked.

“Tomorrow?”

 You can’t wait to see that look on Rafa’s face. “You’re on,” you tell him.

**Author's Note:**

> I probably owe Lin and Pippa an apology for this one. Honestly, I have no idea where all that came from, but it does sound like they're having fun.  
> Tell me what you think!


End file.
